The Queen Louise of Prussia Route – On royal trails

The Queen Louise Route encompasses almost 200 km from Berlin through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg to places and sites that commemorate the queen's life and work. The route roughly follows the path from Hohenzieritz Palace to Berlin that was taken by Queen Louise's casket in 1810; the journey's endpoint, the mausoleum in Charlottenburg Palace Park in Berlin, has become one of the most important sites venerating Queen Louise.

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Her full name, Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie (1776–1810), seems like something straight out of a fairy tale and is extremely well-suited to this region's charming countryside. She was beautiful, graceful and down-to-earth, and in addition to being the most well-known and popular Prussian Queen, she was also the most colourful personality in the German aristocracy. Too beautiful to be true, she was a princess that is usually found only in fairy tales.

The most popular and most famous queen of Prussia

Born in Hannover in 1776 to Charles II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and his wife Princess Friederike of Hessen-Darmstadt, the princess married Crown Prince Frederick William II on 24 December 1793 in the White Hall of the City Palace in Berlin. He would later become the King of Prussia in 1797. It was after the coronation of her son William I in 1871 that she really became a cult figure.

In the wings of power

Queen Louise's life was closely tied to the dramatic events surrounding Prussia's struggle against Napoleon Bonaparte and she was a godsend for both Prussia and the House of Hohenzollern. After Prussia's total defeat, Louise fought courageously and passionately to improve the position of her broken state and for a new system of rule, and became a symbol of Prussia's resurgence and the development of the new German Empire of 1871-1918. Her historical significance therefore went far beyond her influence as Queen of Prussia.

Queen Louise: a legend even today

Many countries were defined by their female monarch. As the heads of two great European powers, history was written by England's Elizabeth I and the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, for example. And then there were those women who, although not monarchs, still left their mark on history. Queen Louise of Prussia was one such woman and was known as the "Queen of Hearts" during her lifetime. No other Prussian queen was held in such high esteem or was as well-loved as she.